22 Jul 2013

Easy Paper Flowers

J loves playing with paper, scrunching it, tearing it into tiny bits, waving it about, scribbling on it, anything but folding it! Instead of using good quality paper, we usually pick up some of the unwanted leaflets and newspapers that always seem to find their way into the house, mostly via the letterbox.

While he busies himself doing his thing, I use the opportunity to let the creative juices flow and practice my own paper folding. Not necessarily origami, as sometimes I do bring out the scissors and sticky tape or glue. Needless to say, J always wants to have a go at whatever it is that I have in my hands! I have let him use the glue, but have successfully managed to keep him away from my scissors. So far. (I really need to buy him a pair of kiddy scissors).

We used to make some very easy paper flowers as children. Vasanta used to string these flowers and hang them all over the house as decorations during poojas (Hindu worship) and festivals. I have managed to improvise on and recreate these flowers, initially with newspaper, and then with colour paper. All with a bit of help from J (he helped by falling asleep :-D ).

Here's how you make them.

You will need:

1) pieces of paper- colour, size, texture will depend on what you want the end result to look like. I just used sheets of colour paper cut into rectangles (10cm × 8cm approx)

2) glue

3) a long piece of string or ribbon. This is if you want to string your flowers together, not if you just want them strewn around or made into bouquets or anything else. I used some shiny golden ribbon.

Start by folding all the pieces of paper to make tiny Japanese paper fans (check the photo if you have forgotten how to make these)

If you are in a rush (or can't be bothered), you can just use these individual tiny paper fans and tie them up with ribbon to serve as your flowers. This is what Vasanta did. To be fair, he did make lots of them.

I prefer them looking like flowers in bloom. To get this effect, pick two of the paper fans and glue them together so that you have one big fan in two colours.

Now pinch this fan in the middle and tie a ribbon around it in the centre.

Spread the paper folds around to give the effect of a flower. You can glue together the remaining edges around the ribbon.

Continue tying the flowers along the ribbon, glueing the free edges as you go along. This just keeps the flowers stable. You can leave the free ends floating around if you so fancy.

String together as many flowers as you wish, embellish with glitter, beads or anything else you want, and put them to use.

I am using them as curtain ties at the moment. That is when J is not running around dragging my flower garlands behind him.